Does the Age of the Smartphone Also Mean Loss of Privacy?

Smartphones have definitely changed the way people live. In
previous years, the only thing important to you was the ability to make a call
or send a text message anytime, anywhere. These days, smartphones allow you to
do more. You can take photos and videos, listen to music, play games, find
places via maps and the GPS, send instant messages, check and compose e-mails,
use office programs, read e-books, and more. But it’s probably your virtual
life that has changed the most since smartphones
like the iPhone came into use.

For a businessman, owning a smartphone means running a
virtual office remotely. For an average user, however, it’s being able to
constantly check and update social networking accounts. You’re able to
instantly upload photos or videos you’d like to share, tweet random thoughts,
and even check in to places you go visit. Then again, all of this posting,
tweeting, and geotagging can also mean sacrificing your privacy. Yes, smartphones
have altered the way people communicate and spend an entire day.
Unfortunately, however, owning a smartphone these days may also mean losing
your right to privacy.

Facebook’s Data Use Policy Says It Can Tell Others About Your Location

“How can I lose my right to privacy when I have a VPN, a
firewall, and antivirus software all running on my phone?”

Yeah, well, those are great but kind of pointless when the
very social networking site you’re constantly using and updating has already compromised
your privacy, and is continuously doing so. Facebook, for one, has clearly
specified in its Data Use Policy the following key points:

We receive
data from the computer, mobile phone or other device you use to access
Facebook, including when multiple users log in from the same device. This may
include your IP address and other information about things like your internet
service, location, the type (including identifiers) of browser you use, or the
pages you visit. For example, we may get your GPS or other location information
so we can tell you if any of your friends are nearby.

We may put
together your current city with GPS and other location information we have
about you to, for example, tell you and your friends about people or events
nearby, or offer deals to you that you might be interested in. We may also put
together data about you to serve you ads that might be more relevant to you.

When we
get your GPS location, we put it together with other location information we
have about you (like your current city). But we only keep it until it is no
longer useful to provide you services, like keeping your last GPS coordinates
to send you relevant notifications.

As you can see, Facebook has clearly stated in its Data Use Policy that they have access to your location and that they can use this data to benefit you, your friends, and their advertisers (which
means more money for Zuckerberg). You can try and sugar-coat this all you want but what this basically means is that Facebook knows where you are and they plan to use this information for profit.

Facebook Developing Mobile-Location Tracking App

What could probably be even more alarming are the reports that Facebook is currently developing a mobile location-tracking app. According to Bloomberg, Facebook “is developing a smartphone application that will track the location of users”, that it’s “scheduled for release by mid-March”, and that it’s “designed to help users find nearby friends and would run even when the program isn’t open on a handset.”

The app is apparently Facebook’s effort to reap profits from
the growing number of mobile users. For Facebook and its advertisers, it may be
huge money-maker. But for the average users, (oh, just a billion of them), it
would be a giant pain in the butt and a total breach of privacy. If such an app
is indeed rolling out this March, then you can pretty much say goodbye to your
privacy and hello to stalkers and irritating ads. For Facebook, apparently, profits
are much more important than users’ privacy.

Why doesn’t anyone in the social networking industry ever
learn that people will retaliate when it’s their privacy and safety that’s at
stake? Facebook-acquired Instagram had to learn this the hard way when they
reworded their Terms of Service. It suffered massive backlash after the changes
to the TOS led users to believe that Instagram plans to sell user photos to
advertisers. The photo-sharing site, however, disproved rumors of any plans of
selling user photos.

RIOT: A Program That Can Track User Movement

Aside from the actual social networking sites, private
companies are also apparently using location data for profit.
According to The Guardian, multi-national firm Raytheon has secretly developed
a program that can track user movement and future behavior through data
collected from social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare.
Dubbed as RIOT (Rapid
Information Overlay Technology), the program is able to paint a picture of
a person’s life — friends and places visited that are even charted on a map —
in just as few clicks.

What does this mean for a user like you? The information you
think you’re sharing only to friends is more likely to fall in the hands of
other entities, particularly the government. Today, determining any “security
risk” can also mean spying on you.

With all of these reports of social networking sites, apps,
and software looking to “expose” user location, it’s hard not to get paranoid.
It’s also becomes more and more apparent that with the age of the smartphones
comes the loss of privacy, and the only way to stay off the grid may be to
completely delete your account.

Nancy Perkins, a full-time mommy wannabe, has been a freelance online writer for two years now. She loves sharing information on health, business, technology, fashion, women's issues and motherhood. Nancy lives life to its fullest each day and
is dreaming of retiring on an island she will someday own.